Thursday, January 13, 2005

Have just seen Kinsey. It is excellent. I urge you to see it. And not just because the lovely Peter Sarsgaard is in it. Though he is. And he's lovely. And Marty said he could kinda understand my mad crush. He said he's like 'ugly hot'. And highly lovable. With a great tender way about him. These are my own words now. Anyway, this film is seriously good. I mean, the subject matter, the endeavour. It's all so interesting. Like, how fucked up people are about their own sexual behaviour. Especially with nowhere to get some perspective on it. And hearing Kinsey promote the idea that diversity is the only constant in nature. The social free-thinking ness. All that. It's great. Sometimes I was like, "Yeah, you go Kinsey." And it was funny too. But later on, when the group dynamic began to feel seedy (Timothy Hutton and Chris O'Donnell creeped me out. They weren't cool and lovely about it like Peter Sarsgaard), and the filming started to happen, I think my inner prude started to come out. I was like, "Hang on a minute. These people are sentient intelligent beings, man. They're not just science and animal behaviour. You guys are intruding on their privacy by watching them like that. Also, I think it's weird that you're actively taking part. And watching it back. And making notes. In a dark room. It's intrusive and creepy." But I think I was supposed to feel that. As the film went on it moved towards a confrontation with the darker side of sexuality, the potential harm of it. Culminating in that meeting with that sexual predator guy in a hotel room. That scene was done really well, by the way. With his manner and initial story lulling you into thinking he was just a more advanced version of everyone else, a Kinsey doppelganger with the same zeal for documentation, but then he just kept talking and talking and talking and you began to feel the horror and not rightness of him, and to see that he was pathological rather than methodical. It was a really well-paced scene, the way it unfolded. And then struck an important point of difference between healthy and harmful sexuality. Anyway, the film is full of stuff like that. It's just so intelligent and great. Really. We loved it. Go see it.